amphiuma

am·phi·u·ma

noun

Any of several long slender salamanders of the genus Amphiuma of the southeast United States that in their adult stage have two pairs of very small nonfunctioning legs and breathe with lungs although they are aquatic. Also called Congo eel . Also called Congo snake .

Origin of amphiuma

New Latin Amphiumagenus name Greek amphi-amphi- Greek pneumabreath ( so named by Alexander Garden, probably in the belief that the adults could breathe in water as well as in air ); see pneu- in Indo-European roots.

Sentence Examples

Cope (16) regarded the Apoda as the extremes of a line of degeneration from the Salamanders, with Amphiuma as one of the annectent forms. In the opinion of P. and F.

Sarasin (17), whose great work on the development of Ichthyophis is one of the most important recent contributions to our knowledge of the batrachians, Amphiuma is a sort of neotenic Caecilian, a larval form become sexually mature while retaining the branchial respiration.